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Three Email Marketing Best Practices to Dodge the Spam Folder


Nathan Johnson - August 28, 2019 - 0 comments

Despite the addition of social media, SMS texting, and podcasts, email marketing is still the leading technique to get in touch with your leads. Every established modern business has some form of a mailing list. This can be a sequence of interesting articles, daily discount deals, or the occasional informative update. There are minimal mailing lists and chatty lists, campaigns meant to engage customers and campaigns meant merely to elicit clicks.

Dodging the Spam Folder with Email Marketing

But no matter what your email marketing campaign should be doing, it’s all moot if you wind up in the spam folder. And with the way modern email servers sort mail, it’s all too easy to be auto-sorted into obscurity. This is particularly true for any company that uses Gmail as its basic email software. Even once you make it to the inbox, many more mailing lists are permanently banished to the spam folder with a single disinterested click. If your first few emails strike the recipient as junky rather than useful or engaging, then you may have squandered your sender address’ only chance at engaging a customer.

Customer Respect is the Key

There are many lists of tricks and rules to stay out of the spam folder. However, many of these miss the central premise. The best way to keep your readers engaged and opening emails: Actually engage them. The key to making sure your customers see your email is to craft your mailing list with the readers in mind. Respect your customers and your emails are far more likely to become a valued part of their lives.

1) Frequency

The first thing to consider is the most appropriate frequency for your mailing list. Unless you have promised to send your recipients daily discounts or updates, there is no reason to send your mailing list an email every day. This and any greater frequency is very likely to be seen as spammy, no matter how good your content is.

More importantly, take some time to think about exactly how frequent would be most appropriate for your target audience and content. People with more sedate lives will consider once a week reasonable. But those with more fast-paced inboxes may be more receptive to frequent emails.

2) Content Value

Your next consideration is the content. Not just having something to say, but being sure that your message is interesting to the recipients. It’s all too easy to get into a company or mission-focused mindset and lose perspective on what is actually interesting to the customers. However, your mailing list recipients should already be sorted by their interests and engagement level.

Each time you send an email, you need your content to be different from the email before. There are few things more suspicious than getting nearly identical emails over and over. In addition, do your best to offer unique and interesting value with each email you send. Perhaps it will be a relevant news article, a unique discount, or a personalized selection. Just make sure your content is new and valuable each time.

3) Simple Design

The last key to avoiding the spam folder is to keep your email designs simple. Yes, it is now possible to fill your emails with color, images, and dynamically design them like web pages. Don’t.

It may seem counter-intuitive but an overly decorated email will come across as more of a flyer than an interesting message. A small amount of formatting can be very effective. Try to keep the content focused on the text itself or a few key images. People are used to important emails being plain. You can show confidence in the value of your content by emphasizing it.

In marketing, metrics and tactics can be distracting. But never forget that your customers are people. Use marketing personas and your own understanding of your audience when making decisions about how to target and implement your email marketing. With good timing and high content value, you’re sure to get a larger number of regular readers and effectively dodge the spam-folder. For more email marketing tips, contact us today!

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